Fundraiser draws everyday heroes’ to fitness challenge

Fitness buffs from around the region gathered in Melrose last Saturday, June 23, for the first-ever Everyday Heroes Fitness Challenge.

Lisa Guerriero/ melrose@wickedlocal.com

Fitness buffs from around the region gathered in Melrose last Saturday, June 23, for the first-ever Everyday Heroes Fitness Challenge.

Superhero costumes were encouraged, which was appropriate given the fact that the event raised money for EveryDay Heroes. This local nonprofit provides resources and educational programs for civil servants who actively serve their communities as police, fire, EMTs and military personnel.

CrossFit Route 1, which is located at 732 Newburyport Turnpike (Route 99) in Melrose, hosted the event. The fitness center was previously located in Saugus, but kept its original name when it moved to Melrose earlier this month, said owner Jared Monaco.

The event presented two-person teams, which were each a male and one female, in a variety of physical challenges. The winners took home a $500 prize.

Event organizer Kendra Cecieta said they had about 60 participants, 20 volunteers and more than 100 spectators.

“It was overwhelming the amount of interest and support we got,” Cecieta said.

The event raised about $3,000 for the EveryDay Heroes nonprofit.

Many of the competitors were members of area firefighters, including Saugus, and the Melrose Police Department donated a police detail for the event, she said. State Sen. Katherine Clark also attended.

Cecieta established EveryDay Heroes in 2011 along with her brother Mark Cecieta and mother Francine Cecieta. Her father, William Cecieta, was a Saugus firefighter who died when she and her brother were still children.

One night in 1965, William Cecieta was standing on Route 99 — not far from where the fundraiser was held last weekend — to direct the driver of the fire truck back into the station. He was hit by a drunken driver and died from the injuries he sustained.

The nearby Essex Street fire station in Saugus was named for Cecieta and the building bears a plaque in his honor.

Kendra Cecieta said that tragic loss, and the challenges the family faced after losing him, is what inspired them to create EveryDay Heroes.

The organization is building up funds to pay for three areas of focus: helping out with emergency financial cases; providing health and wellness programs for local fire departments; and establishing a financial awareness program for civil servants to help them understand things like how much disability insurance they really need and how to qualify for a mortgage so you can live in the same place where you work.

Cecieta said that too often, police, firefighters and EMTs don’t have enough resources available to them when something goes wrong.

“Until they have a problem, they don’t know who to turn to, and we want to be those people,” she said.

Other projects are sending youths who’ve lost a parent on duty to summer camps, which they’ve already done for one local family, and providing grief counseling.

Families can check the EveryDay Heroes website in July (SupportEveryDayHeroes.org) to get an application for emergency help, Cecieta said.

Local firefighters and other civil servants have been “really receptive,” Cecieta said, and she hopes to ultimately expand the organization’s service area beyond the region to become statewide.

This was the first big event for EveryDay Heroes. They hope to host it again next year, likely at CrossFit in Melrose. Monaco, the fitness center owner, is a friend of Cecieta, and she teaches a group class there on Saturdays.